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Friday, April 19, 2013

All That You Can Leave Behind

If you know me, you'll know I'm a HUGE U2 fan. I have all their albums - some even in vinyl and cassette format. Oh yes!

No surprise that on the way out the door to my most recent trip to China and Japan, I was thinking about leaving my family behind and humming, "Walk On" by U2.

The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen

Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind

Except that, I'm not a person who usually leaves things behind anywhere. I'm not the type to lose stuff. Ok, well there was that one time I left my passport on a restaurant table in Heathrow airport, but um, let's not talk about that right now. So aside from that, I had a good track record for keeping it together. All that failed with this trip.
I left sort of cocky. Oh yeah, this is old hat! I've traveled so much before, this was nothing. I wasn't even nervous.

Everything was pretty good until I left my iPad charger at the hotel in Beijing. I'm pretty sure I left it plugged into the wall. I'm happy I wasn't so out of it that I left my iPad, so it could have been worse, but still! Grrrr.

Then I got to the Beijing airport and missed my flight. Oh yes! That's a pretty BIG error. So I did what any reasonable adult would do in my situation - I went into a bathroom and cried a bit. lol
Eventually, I found internet access and booked a new flight using Travelocity.

At the same time, I also realized I had lost my departure card for China. Right. I had successfully hung onto it ALL week and somehow lost it on my last day! Luckily, they provide extras when leaving - I wasn't sure how strict China was about things like this. The back of the card says not to lose it!

Next day, I was in Tokyo and it was raining so I bought an umbrella. I later left that umbrella in a taxi cab.

I swear, there was some sort of strange lost-items karma that was attacking me for getting through childhood and half of adulthood without so much as a lost mitten. I mean for real, I never lost anything! I can proudly boast at having gotten my own child to the age of three without losing one tiny item of clothing also. This is how on the ball I am!

Oh man. So this trip was all about making me humble or something and leaving everything behind. At least I didn't lose myself :)